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Sunday, March 20, 2016

This is a continuation of my Cape Town’s never ending money dump investigation
(The money dump).

Hundreds of thousands of rand have
just been spent on heavy earth moving equipment to shift the sand dunes around
at Witsands at the site of a rubbish dump that was closed more than 30 years
ago.

The
Cape Town City Council has splurged an average of R500 000 a year on this
over the last 10 years according to Johan van der Merwe the Councillor in
charge of Environmental Planning.

The dunes adjoin a popular surfing
beach on a scenic route not far from Cape
Town on the road to Cape Point.

Here
I reveal how the additional R150 000 the City has just spent on net fences
to keep the sand in place is another huge waste of money because this is not
the best or the most economical solution.

A lot of sand has been taken out of
the middle of the area and dumped to form a ridge about a 100 metres wide
parallel to the beach.

The Council then employed Vula Environmental
Restoration, a firm of dune restoration specialists, to erect five kilometres
of net fencing along this ridge to keep the sand in place in a area notorious
for very strong winds at all times of the year.

In the past the use of brushwood had
proved a dismal failure.

Now it seems this netting, which is an
even more expensive method, will be another huge waste of tax payer’s money.

All the experts I could find on the
internet were unanimous: This is only a temporary solution.

This is what one had to say: “There are various methods of sanddunestabilization. All of them,
but one, are considered temporary. The permanent sand dune stabilization is afforestation.”

So
my idea of having the area covered with the fast growing Port Jackson willow, which the man on site in
charged of the Vula netting project laughed at, would seem to be the best
solution (See my first
report The money dump) I went to Witsands after the first big
blow had occurred a day after the net web had been completed and it was down
in several places.

In others the sand was nearly covering it. When this
happens the nets are no longer any use as a sand trap according to Dr William
“Bill” Woodhouse a Professor of Soil Science who worked for the United States
Army Corps of Engineers.

An authority on the stabilisation of coastal dunes Dr
Woodhouse and another professor developed a new superior strain of American
beach grass to trap sand on this type of dune.

His conclusions were that vegetation was the best,
most economical way of stabilizing dunes on a permanent basis.

In several places between the rows of
netting nearest the Witsands beach rubbish, like glass and plastic was showing
above the sand. This had either been exposed by the wind or it could have been
brought in with sand when it was moved from further inland to form the ridge.

Various types of non-biodegradable
waste were also visible on top of the sand at what appears to be the heart of
the old landfill site. It looked as though too much sand had been taken off
this area to build up the ridge next to the beach. Organic rubbish has long
since rotted away.

On 13 March I emailed pictures to
Councillor Johan van Merwe. These were examples of what the netting looked like
after the first strong wind and I asked him what he thought it would be like in
six months or a year’s time.

I included other pictures of rubbish
on the surface.

I also pointed out that although
Witsands was designated as a free running beach for dogs little or no provision
had been made for them to get out of this web of nets even though I had been
told this was the case. I added that I believed dogs could easily get trapped
inside it and then it would probably be pushed down.

I asked for his comments and have yet
to get an answer.

Rows of net fences

Almost dead and buried

Fencing falling over already

Plastic and glass showing between the rows

Rubbish on the surface further inland fromwhere the nets are

Regards,

Jon,
a Consumer Watchdog and Cape Town ratepayer who hates seeing his money
squandered in this way, on an old rubbish dump of all things, when the poor
are regularly protesting violently against lack of basic services.

When you are trying to bring down South Africa’s President and
generally picking on the rogues and incompetents of this world it’s incumbent
upon you to ensure that your paper’s reputation for accuracy and fairness is as
immaculate as reasonably possible.

But
you can’t do this if the inadequacies of your staff are such that apologies
become a regular feature of your paper.

Most of the biggest ones were forced
on your paper after a Press Ombudsman ruling while the less prominent ones were
made voluntarily.

A
disturbing thread that runs through far too many of them is that your reporters
don’t get both sides of the story and yet your paper is still prepared to
publish them.

Surely you must have been told in the
early stages of your career that getting both sides of the story is an absolute
must as it is one of the basic rules of journalism.

By not doing this
your paper not only increases the risk of making a serious error but it also
stands accused of being grossly unfair

Then too it bolsters the old saying:
“Don’t get the other side in case it spoils a good story.”

6 March: Got Gordhan's wife'sname wrong this time

I accept that it takes a bit of time
before complaints to the Ombudsman Johan Retief are finalised so the subject of
his recent rulings can’t necessarily be laid at your door as you only became
the Sunday Times Editor in November last year.

Still I assume you must have taken
note of them. You were already in the hot seat on 20 December when the following admission was included in your
paper’s apology ordered by the Ombudsman after a complaint from Previn Gordhan
the Minister of Finance.

“We
accept we were in breach of the Press Code for failing to seek Gordhan’s
comment ahead of publication.”

Having accepted that, your paper keeps on doing it.

On 14 February in one of your increasingly common Matter of Fact voluntary apologies there was another admission that
the person involved “was notasked to comment.”

It was the same story on 21 February when the ironically named Matter ofFact told us that you had not given the person concerned “an opportunity to respondto the allegation.”

And today 20 March the headline on Page 2 cries out “Ombudsman finds we failed to let parliament reply.”

Even your lead story last week headed How Gutptas shopped for new minister
showed that not getting both sides of the story appears to have become habitual
on your paper.

Alright you got away with it this time
and only you and the reporters concerned will know if it was good luck or
careful planning.

Jonas

As you know this sensational political
splash was based on nothing more than a series of unnamed “sources” - a very dubious
form of journalism. It told readers that members of the Gupta family had
offered the Deputy Minister of Finance Mcebisi Jonas the Finance Minister’s job
held by Nhlanhla Nene.

The significance being that the
Gupta family are known to be very close to President Jacob Zuma and the meeting
when this was supposed to have taken place occurred days before Nene was fired
by Zuma.

Your story again showed up the calibre of your own reporters
by admitting that your paper was beaten to it by the London Financial Times and this is what
sparked your interest in it that week.

Your paper claimed the controversial
meeting took place on 27 November last year, so while your ace scribes were
sleeping the Financial Times was digging up the dirt on your turf from half a
world away.

In the old days of Fleet Street
journalists got instantly dismissed for missing a big one like this.

13 March: In the Businesssection. You would thinkthat there they would knowthe difference between dollarsand rands

To get back to my original complaint;
the Gupta story revealed that “numerousattempts to get comment from Jonas were
unsuccessful yesterday.” That could
only have meant it was on Saturday, your publication day.

That
clause in the Press Council’s Code of Conduct was conveniently forgotten and like
your paper has done often recently the story was put to bed without anybody
speaking to the Government Minister who was the main focus of the report.

If as you claimed you were piggy
backing on a Financial Times story why was it that your reporters left it to
Saturday, the last minute as it were, to try and get hold of Jonas.

Some
cynics might have said your reporters never spoke to Jonas in case he spoilt
the big story of the week, like all the people that were named, by denying that
he had ever been made the controversial offer.

You would have thought that by having
three of them Thanduxolo Jika, Qaanitah Hunter and Sabelo Skiti on the job at
least one of them would have been able to locate Jonas.

As it turned out a few days after your
report was published Jonas publicly admitted that the story that the Guptas had
made him the offer was true.

BUT
IT DOESN’T ALTER THE FACT THAT THE STANDARD OF JOURNALISM ON YOUR PAPER LEAVES
MUCH TO BE DESIRED.

I wonder if the shareholders of Times
Media, the owners of the Sunday Times, are happy with this lotto journalism.
It’s lucky when you hit the jackpot, but when it’s played in a national Sunday
paper with millions of readers it can cost a fortune in defamation damages when
the wrong number comes up.

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Do you
know that your City is spending millions moving sand dunes around at an
obsolete, windswept rubbish dump site? And to make matters worse there is no
prospect of this money dumping that is running at half a million a year or more
ever ending.

The dump at Witsands next to a popular
surfing and kite surfing beach between Kommetjie and Scarborough
not far from Cape Point ceased being used for the City’s refuse something like
30 years ago. It is nowhere near where anybody lives.

But that hasn’t stopped it devouring
money at this alarming rate.

If you had been there in the last few
weeks you couldn’t be blamed if you had thought that an open cast mining
operation was on the go.

The machinery being used consisted of
two huge dump trucks with “Burma Plant Hire & Mining” on the side and a
tracked bulldozer and excavator some of them weighing up to 50 tons. All these
had to be carted to and from the scene on expensive low bed loaders.

I have been going to Witsands on a
regular basis for some years now and this year the array of expensive earth
moving equipment trundling across this expanse of white sand seemed bigger than
ever.

They spent more than a month flattening
dunes; building sand castles; smoothing them over and causing sand storms when
the endemic strong winds were blowing.

It took me three weeks to get an
explanation from the Council for what appears to be an incredible waste of
money when there are so many much more deserving causes among the City’s huge
poverty stricken population.

Even then I was still left with
questions unanswered by Johan van der Merwe, the Democratic Alliance Mayoral Committee Member
responsible for Environmental Planning.

After my first emailed I sent him a subsequent one asking him to clarify some of his
answers.

He told
me that the cost of managing this historic landfill site over the last 10 years
was estimated at R500 000 per year and that included the cost of using the
City’s machinery. Other extracts
of our email conversations, with my comments in brackets, were as follows.

Jon: How much will
the current work cost and how long will it go on for?

Van der Merwe: It will last for two to four weeks and the City’s machinery will
be used so the cost is minimal. (Since when does it cost virtually
nothing if you use your own machinery? And it's been going for more like six weeks or more)

New Question

Jon: What City machinery
are you talking about? For weeks now the only machinery on site was supplied by
Burma
Plant Hire. From what I was told the total hire cost for these four machines is
around R5 000 an hour and assuming they work an 8 hour day that’s R40 000
a day. So if this goes on for say 20 working days the cost is close to
R1-million. Was this job put out to tender?

1st Picture

Van der Merwe: These machines are sourced and provided by the City’s Fleet
Management Department and are not contracted specifically for this job, but as
part of the City’s fleet needs (This vague answer gives the impression that these machines are
permanently hired by the City. Cape
Town based Burma Plant Hire was no help other than to
refer me to the Council). Further more these are not costed at the rate suggested (Shouldn’t
he have put me right by giving me the correct figures).

* * *

Jon: Surely the waste
has long since rotted down so why is it necessary to keep putting this sand
blanket over it?

2nd Picture

Van der Merwe: All organic waste has decomposed, however plastic, glass and other
non-biodegradable materials exist in large quantities and will remain in
perpetuity.

New question

Jon: This is well
covered by the sand in an area where few people go so what is the point of continuing
to waste a huge amount of ratepayer’s money in moving the sand around every
year when there are far more urgent matters to attend to that need a lot of
money. If, as you say, there are large amounts of non-biodegradable material
which will remain “in perpetuity,” does this mean the City will be pouring an
ever increasing amount of money into this defunct rubbish dump forever?

3rd Picture

4th Picture

Van der Merwe: Every winter (this
is a winter rainfall area) natural ponds build up at the back of the beach which breach
the landfill site and open it. The works being done now avoid that outcome. The
system is far more complicated than is generally understood as it is not simply
about the amount of sand on top of the landfill but the entire dynamic system
which includes a seasonal wetland and out flow.

* *
*

Jon: What efforts
have been made to cover the area with indigenous vegetation?

Van der Merwe: This is very challenging and almost impossible to do as the sand is
naturally mobile and therefore even if this was to be a successful experience,
‘modifying’ this natural system would require several authorizations.

5th Picture

You can see in the foreground how well the vegetation growson the dunes when it it left alone. This excavator was enlarging the barren area by digging up plants with sand next to the road(See 7th Picture) well away from the place where the refuse is buried. This was then taken in the dump trucks to just abovethe beach (See 2nd Picture) where it was finally smoothed outby the bulldozer

New question

Jon: What
authorisations and from whom and at what cost?

Van der Merwe: This is Standard Operating Protocol as part of the landfill
closure (If that’s the
case what’s the problem, although this is not much of an explanation? Also why
does he ignore the question of cost?).

* * *

Jon: By annually
disturbing the dunes with heavy machinery and moving the sand around isn’t the
Council just perpetuating the situation and with this going on there is
absolutely no chance of the indigenous vegetation taking hold?

Van der Merwe: Sand naturally migrates and therefore it is unable to provide a
stable and conducive environment for indigenous vegetation. Wind creates dunes
and these naturally blow around, eventually causing waste to be exposed. The
wind netting to be deployed, which will replace the brushwood used to date, (another additional cost) will limit excessive
dune formation; keep a more permanent sand ‘blanket’ and also reduce annual
operating requirements.

New question

Jon: It’s not true to
say the sand doesn’t provide a stable environment for indigenous vegetation(See the 5th Picture from the top).

Van der Merwe: It is in fact true. This is a mobile sand system and old headland
pass (A headland pass is
a narrow waterway through a headland, but presumably if it is an “old” one it
no longer runs. However on the one side of this Council made sand pit that
covers an area of about 30 hectars there is a small stream
that runs into the sea in winter and dries up in summer. There is quite thick
vegetation on each side of this but it doesn’t go far on the one side because
that’s where the sand has been dug up and moved around). It is not meant to be vegetated across the dune
fields.

Jon: There are lots
of parts of that Witsands area where sand dunes have clearly been covered by
indigenous vegetation.

Van der Merwe: This only occurs at the back of the beach, which is not affected
by the mobile sand system. This does not occur in the main mobile dune path.

Jon: The main reason,
as I see it, that a lot of the area has not been covered by vegetation is
because the Council has been moving the sand around every year and in addition
the heavy machinery used has ploughed it up all over the place. I don't think plants could survive for long anywhere in these conditions. In the wind the current work is making sand storms which are probably blowing the sand back from where it has been moved.

6th Picture

7th Picture

Council made sand storms

He again repeated that it was not meant to
have vegetation “across the dune fields” and that what I wrote about the wind
was also not correct as the “sand travels in a northwest direction as directed
by the southeast wind” whatever that means.

* *
*

Jon: How can the City
possibly justify spending this kind of money on an on-going basis on a RUBBISH
DUMP THAT WAS CLOSED IN 1985 ACCORDING TO WHAT I WAS TOLD, when shack areas are
going up in flames almost daily leaving the poor with a great deal of needs.

Van der Merwe: This is an extremely cost-effective measure of managing the
landfill site. Without management the City will have to spend far greater
amounts collecting all the waste that will be distributed when a breach occurs
as well as the unsightly impact of exposed landfill on the beach. Please see
the enclosed pics of this prior to the City’s management interventions. 8th Picture

This is what happened, according to Johan, before the currentR500 000 a year plus scheme was adopted. This was not surprisingas there was no vegetation or anything else to hold this expanse offine white sand in place

9th Picture

Furthermore it should be noted that the Witsands Landfill Project was designed
and implemented as a job creation programme that, successfully over many years,
has created employment in the form of brush wood collection, hedge row
replacement and litter picking for the communities.

Of the annual budget to this project more
than 60% goes directly to unskilled labour employment – this has been a very
successful project (My
underlining).

* *
*

From
what Johan told me it means that of the R500 000 a year that has been
spent on this dump in recent years R300 000 a year has gone to
disadvantaged people.

I FIND THIS EXTREMELY HARD TO BELIEVE UNLESS
THEY HAD SHARES IN AN EARTH MOVING COMPANY.

I have
been going there often in the last few years and in recent times I haven’t seen
anybody, apart from the drivers of the earth moving equipment, working there.

There
are signs of brushwood used to try and stabilise the dunes showing above the
sand in a few places, but this is now going to be replaced with netting,
according to Johan, so the job of collecting this now falls away – not that I
would imagine it as being a very lucrative occupation. Here is the netting being erected.10th Picture

11th Picture

12th Picture

This was how this spider web of netting began

13th Picture

Then the web spread out to this before being spun out allalong the side of the beach

The City has employed Vula Environmental Restoration, a firm that specialises in dealing with degraded and modified coastal dunes, to erect the nets.

The person in charge of the work told me this was a "tried and tested" method of ensuring that the sand was blown on to the beach instead of inland. He said nothing else had worked so far (See also http: wasting more money)

WHAT AFTER 30 YEARS?

When I suggested that the best solution was to cover the entire area with Port Jackson he laughed and said, "They're trying to get rid of that."

He agreed that the cost of putting up this netting was "huge." It turned out to be R150 000.

Witsands is designated a free running beach for dogs but he assured me that provision had been made for this with gaps in the net fences to enable animals to get out of the maze if they had to.But they might need a Garmin to do this.

Although I only saw the initial stages of this work I was told about five kilometres of this netting will be erected in an area about 100 metres wide where the sand has been banked up next to the beach.

I wonder how many of these flimsy net fences will still be standing in six months time after sand has been blown up against them and whether they will be just as much of a failure as the brush wood.

I haven’t
a clue what Johan means when he said the project has provided an income for
people doing “hedge row replacement and litter picking”. There are no hedges
around there as far as I know. It’s all wild indigenous plants and bush and if
the scheme has been so successful what litter would there have been to pick?

You
ratepayers must decide if it is prudent to spend R500 000 or more a year
of your money on protecting an historic rubbish dump more or less in the middle
of nowhere.

As one
myself I’m appalled. There surely must be a better way of dealing with this like diverting run-off from the mountain side into the existing stream at the side of the dump and making sure that all the dunes are well covered with

vegetation.

This new growthwas showing justa couple of monthsafter this area wasravaged by fire andit didn't need rainto get it going

The obvious solution as I see it would be to plant the whole area over the dump with Port Jackson(Acasia saligna) willow. Alright I know it has been declared an invasive alien but it has proved to be very effective for holding sand dunes in place. It also recovers quickly from bush fires which are common around Cape Town in summer.Acasia saligna is a rapid growing, dense spreading small tree or shrub that seeds itself prolifically and can grow over a meter a year when young. Many years ago it was introduced from its native Australia to hold the sand down on the Cape Flats, another part of Cape Town that is similar to Witsands in that it borders the sea. It then got itself a bad name because is spread all over the place from the flats to the mountain sides where it took over from the indigenous fynbos that is a unique variety of flora found nowhere else in the world.

In this case planting Acasia saligna would be a lesser evil than spending millions that could be put to better use like uplifting the poor. In any case it wouldn't be replacing the local vegetation as there is nothing growing over the dump anyway. 14th Picture

Before horrified fynbos lovers start protesting at my idea they should first have a look at the mountain side (See 14th Picture above) next to the Ocean View township on Kommetjie road opposite where I live. This is just over the mountain from where Witsands is.

It's spectacular whenin flower

It is covered with a veritable forest of Port Jackson which the Council does nothing about. If the Witsands dump looked like this nobody would ever have to be concerned that it would wash away again. There would also be no sand blowing around and no need for any further maintenance work on it - a saving of millions for the City Council. Even now there are already clumps of Port Jackson growing on the dunes at Witsands (It can be seen in the foreground of the 5th Picture).

Regards

Jon,
a Consumer Watchdog trying to clear the sand from his eyes after walking his dogs on
Witsands beach and wondering how much his rates and electricity bills will go up
in the next couple of months.

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About Me

I was born in South Africa just before the Boer War whenever that was?
Started life with a golden spoon in my mouth which made eating rather difficult as a result I was under nourished as a child.
Went to a posh school where I only got moved up a class when my old man donated another sight screen for the cricket pitch.
Career prospects were dismal and I was once turned down for a job in the London sewers. "Too highly qualified;"that’s what they said.
I became a journalist when the Police Force wouldn’t have me.
Like most journos I know nothing about everything but I still write about it.
I decided to have my own blog so I wouldn't have to drink with the editor for hours on end to get my stuff published when according to my independent assessment it’s always of great news value.
My religious beliefs are: You only die once so remember, "You can’t be serious and Have Fun."
NEWS FLASH: I've just been appointed the Poor Man's Press Ombudsman by Presidential Decree (Not to be confused with the PRESS COUNCIL OF SOUTH AFRICA'S, SA Press Ombudsman)